[WikiEN-l] Back to the source no NPOV

[The Cunctator]

On Thu, 2003-05-22 at 12:56, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3ANPOV
> 
> I think there's some confusion popping up about NPOV, evidenced in
> part by Cunc's suggestion that NPOV is a Platonic ideal.  I think I
> know what he means, and I might agree with him in a way, but I think
> other people may be misunderstanding what he's saying.  (Or, perhaps I
> just disagree with Cunc.)

Don't blame me! The problem is that what is defined on
[[Wikipedia:NPOV]] != "neutral point of view". That is, the concept
denoted by the four letters NPOV, as defined within the Wikipedia
context, is not congruous to the concept denoted by the phrase "neutral
point of view".

This is a basic problem. 

By way of analogy: say I defined something called "WikiPeace" as "the
safety of logged-in Wikipedia users from denigrating comments or
improper edits from anonymous users." There is certainly some
concordance between this concept and the standard concept of "peace on
Wikipedia", as evident from their interchangeability in some contexts:

"That's the fourth time 168.42.100.1 has vandalised my user page. So
much for having some WikiPeace/peace on Wikipedia."

But they are not congruous:

"The only way to guarantee WikiPeace is to ban anonymous users."

is true, but

"The only way to achieve peace on Wikipedia is to ban anonymous users."

is not.

Wikipedia:NPOV has a similar problem. It simply does not mean the same
thing as "neutral point of view".

For example, take the following paragraph:
> 
> But if someone says that a particular statement of mine is not NPOV,
> that's a different matter.  Lots of perfectly true and objective
> statements are not NPOV, because they would be disputed by people who
> are reasonable but mistaken.

If one tries to replace "NPOV" with "neutral point of view" they get
gibberish.

So lets look at non-gibberish formulations:

Possible formulation 1)
"Lots of perfectly true and objective statements are not *neutral*,
because they would be disputed by people who are reasonable but
mistaken"

That doesn't really make sense.

Possible formulation 2)
"Lots of perfectly true and objective statements are not *written from a
neutral point of view*, because they would be disputed by people who are
reasonable but mistaken"

That also doesn't make sense.

Possible formulation 3)
"Lots of perfectly true and objective statements are not *written with
the necessary context to explain how people currently perceive the
topic*, because they would be disputed by people who are reasonable but
mistaken"

Ah, now we're getting somewhere. Note that formulations 1) and 2)
actually have something to do with "neutral point of view", but 3) does
not.

And that's the problem.

Solution: figure out what concise concept is expressed by "NPOV" in the
above statements.

I could give you my prediction as to what would be the positive result
of such an exercise, but I'll wait to see if the above is at all
convincing to the interested parties.